The Best of Us Read Online Free Page B

week. How did you know?
    She grinned as she hit Send. Allie was such a good girl; Savannah could almost hear her squeal.
    Ha ha!
    The messenger came yesterday, Savannah typed. Unbelievable!
    Are you guys coming? Can Gary get off work?
    Savannah’s fingers paused over the keyboard. It would’ve been better if the invitation had come last year, when she and Gary were still together. Or next year, when Savannah could show up with a suitcase full of bikinis and a hot new boyfriend. She’d told her friends in North Carolina, but no one in the group from college knew because for some reason, saying the words— I’m separated —seemed almost as hard as actually going through a separation.
    Screw it, she thought as she exhaled loudly. She’d pick up a new sarong and get a spray tan with Gary’s next check, andshe’d go to Jamaica. She’d dance barefoot to steel drum music on the beach and take a few windsurfing lessons, and fool around with the instructor, if he was as hot as Savannah imagined a windsurfing instructor was constitutionally required to be. She’d even give Dwight a few free glimpses of cleavage, for old times’ sake.
    Wouldn’t miss it, Savannah typed.
    She couldn’t tell Allie about the looming divorce, not now. Allie would immediately phone, asking sympathetic questions in her gentle social worker’s voice, and Savannah would probably do something ridiculous, like burst into tears. And then a good prospect would walk in the door and size everything up—ugly picture frames, bucktoothed children, peeling wallpaper, sobbing real estate agent—and flee.
    She’d call Allie later, when she had a glass of good scotch in hand—the expensive, aged scotch Gary splurged on and adored, which Savannah had relocated to under the sink on his moving day.
    Yippee! Allie wrote back.
    Savannah could almost see her leaping into the air like the high school cheerleader she’d been. Savannah pictured Allie with her reddish brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her big blue eyes bright, her perfect teeth displayed in a big smile. Since Allie went running almost every day, she’d probably be wearing spandex—but nothing too tight or revealing, which was a shame, because Allie had a cute little body, even if she was flat-chested. Why not show it off while she still could? For that matter, why not just buy a set of better boobs?
    I can’t wait! Allie wrote. Hugs!
    Savannah smiled. Allie’s relentless optimism could grate at times, but maybe it would be contagious on this trip, and Savannah could use a little infusion of joy. Sure, it might feel odd to be the only single one, but Savannah had always felt comfortablearound Gio and Ryan. She’d kicked back with them on the couch many times, shouting orders at the football players on TV and drinking Sam Adams from the bottle, leaving Allie and Tina to gossip in the kitchen. In fact, Gary was the one who hadn’t fit in with them; he had no interest in sports.
    See you soon, babe, Savannah typed.
    She needed to get used to doing things alone. She needed to feel desirable again. This trip would be a good start.
    *   *   *
    You could divide the ten women sitting around the big rectangular table into two equal-size groups, Pauline mused as she reached for the silver coffee service and freshened her cup of French roast.
    Group A was composed of the high achievers: the well-connected women who brokered seven- and eight-figure deals and jetted to Tokyo for a day. They wore plain business suits and expensive watches, had short hair—Pauline imagined their schedules were too busy to accommodate blowouts—and frowned while their fingers flew across their BlackBerrys.
    Then there was Group B, the ones like her. The spouses.
    Pauline had already figured out that the high achievers had joined the board of Children’s Hospital to balance the gritty realities of their day jobs, during which they screwed over employees and fattened the bottom lines of environment-polluting